EDITORIAL How three retailers are getting creative with how they personalise for growth

With Peak around the corner and Brexit looming, here are three retailers that are doing all they can to grow in three very distinct ways

As the UK winds down for the last bank holiday before Christmas, we offer up the usual array of interesting industry news, but also take a look at three retailer case studies that show case three different strategies to boost sales.

With Peak season about to kick off when we all go ‘back to school’ in September, these case studies outline how the need to create everything from a great social media strategy, to personalised marketing to the ability to experiment with user experience are all vital tools in the toolbox of making your etail business better.

User experience is the watchword of today’s online commerce paradigm and the ability to get that right is vital to business success – but how do you get it right without taking too many risks?

At German cosmetics giant Cosnova that has involved creating a totally different technical set up at the back end to allow it to experiment with the kinds of user experiences it delivers across channels.

This ‘headless’ ecommerce approach offers an insight into how next generation ecommerce systems will be employed and deployed, allowing the creation of multiple different experiences and taking us all one step closer to the ultimate of one-to-one personalisation of content, marketing and sales.

Cosnova has obviously invested heavily in this, but significant changes can be also be rendered from small tweaks around the edges, if you aren’t ready just yet to totally rethink your platforming strategy.

Fashion retailer Roman Originals – the company behind that dress that looked blue and black or gold and white depending on your genes/screen quality – has dipped more conventionally into creating a more personalised marketing trail to use the data it has to more effectively talk to its customers and prospects.

And the results are impressive. In the three-month period from November to February, this highly targeted approach secured an incremental revenue increase of almost £500,000 – giving Roman Originals an incremental return on ad spend of £7 for every £1 invested, which is far above the industry norm.

If messing with the form is still too high tech for you, then worry not, there are more straightforward ways you can use what you already have to create success. In our third case study shoe retailer, Moda in Pelle, show cases how it experienced a 33% increase in transactions through a social media marketing campaign in support of the Pink Ribbon Foundation.

The Leeds-based brand aimed to increase sales over May Bank Holiday and generate enough revenue to donate up to £50,000 to Pink Ribbon, a charity that raises money for breast cancer charities across the UK.

With Brexit uncertainty clouding the Bank Holiday and beyond, all retailers are starting to look at how they need to create new ways to engage and drive growth and sales. These three we outline this week are all doing just that: on a big budget, a middling budget and on a much more prosaic and straightforward way.

The key thing is that they are doing it – and as we show, it is working.

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